German luxury carmaker Daimler on Thursday announced record profits for 2017 thanks to strong SUV and truck sales, but the results were overshadowed by the firm's connection to controversial diesel exhaust tests on monkeys. Daimler said net profits soared by 24 percent last year to 10.9 billion euros ($13.5 billion), with a little help from a roughly one-billion-euro boost from sweeping US tax reforms. "The Daimler workforce has once again succeeded in breaking the records set in the previous year," chief executive Dieter Zetsche said. read more